Milestone carbon pollution plan rejected by Washington state voters

Initiative 1631 aimed to raise $2.2bn over five years and help Washington slash its greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter by 2025. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

A milestone plan to impose America’s first ever price on carbon pollution failed to win enough votes in Washington state, on a tough night for environmentalists who had pinned their hopes on a number of climate change-related ballot measures across the country.

A majority of Washington state voters in the midterm elections rejected a measure, known as Initiative 1631, that would have put a $15 fee on each ton of carbon dioxide emitted in the state, with the funds used to bolster various renewable energy projects.

It is the third time an attempt to implement carbon pricing has been thwarted in Washington, a progressive state in the Pacific north-west with just one, soon-to-close coal power plant and a glut of hydroelectricity. The glaring ballot failure threatens prospects of moving quickly enough to avert disastrous climate change.

“It’s a setback because nothing really happens at a federal level until it happens in the states – just look at gay marriage,” said Heidi Peltier, an expert in low-carbon policy at the University of Massachusetts. “If we are going to have a carbon tax nationally, we need to have enough states doing it. Washington state had a chance to be one of the leaders.”

Carbon pricing has been backed by a broad range of economists as the most efficient way of driving down emissions, with the European Union and, more recently, Canada, embracing the idea. A recent UN report, which warned of dire consequences if planetary warming isn’t urgently curbed, suggested a fee much higher than $15 a ton.

Initiative 1631, which followed a similar ballot measure that failed two years ago, aimed to raise $2.2bn over five years and help Washington slash its greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter by 2025.

However, voters rejected the initiative because “they understood it was a flawed initiative that would have raised consumer costs substantially while doing very little to meet carbon reduction goals in the state”, according to Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, which spearheaded the no vote. Oil giant BP and others spent $30m opposing carbon pricing.

Environmentalists vowed to persevere. “While we still believe that a carbon fee would be a helpful solution, we can and must do more to find and adopt other creative solutions to slow global warming,” said Bruce Speight, director of Environment Washington.

A spokesman for the yes on the 1631 campaign said the group hadn’t conceded defeat yet.

“The oil industry spent the most money in our state’s history and were willing to lie to voters about their support and mislead them on the facts,” he said.

The Washington vote was just one green-tinged measure rejected by voters. In Colorado, the fossil fuel industry spent more than $40m to help defeat a proposal requiring oil and gas wells to be half a mile from homes, schools and waterways.

Meanwhile, Arizona voters said no to Proposition 127, which would have mandated the state obtain half its energy needs from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2030.

Climate activists enjoyed a win in Florida, however, with voters backing a ban on all offshore drilling for oil and gas in state waters.

There was further encouragement for environmentalists at the prospect of a Democrat-held House of Representatives probing the activity of the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Interior, as well as the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Deb Haaland and Ilhan Omar – all House Democrats who favour a transition to 100% renewable energy. The current Democratic leadership is not, however, understood to have large-scale plans to tackle the climate change crisis.

And the midterms highlighted the ongoing clout of the fossil fuel industry and the vast gulf between the current slow pace of emissions reduction and the action that scientists say is required to stave off the worst impacts of heatwaves, flooding, extreme weather and losses of animal species.

“Environmentalists still have a challenge in their messaging, there’s still the impression that carbon pricing or regulations will make everything more expensive,” said Peltier. “Oil, gas and coal can put a lot of money into ballot initiatives they see as detrimental to their future and put out information on climate change that isn’t real. There’s a real disparity there.”

Environmental advocates at a post-election press conference in Washington DC, largely claimed victory as Democrats won back the House and many governors pledged to phase out fossil fuels, but they acknowledged they are still in an uphill battle.

“We didn’t win everywhere, and we know that,” said Wendy Wendlandt, senior vice-president for the Environment America Action Fund. “I think that’s on us as the environmental community to figure out how to connect the concern we know exists with environmental voters at the ballot box.”

“It is true that we have been able to make progress over the last couple years,” said the Sierra Club executive director, Mike Brune, noting environmental successes.

“But it is also true that we are in a fight. We are in a bitter fight, a divisive fight.”

Tom Steyer, the California billionaire whose group financed the Arizona renewable power measure, said Democrats can’t wait for Republicans to come to the table as the science shows a need for immediate action.

“If we want to succeed by 2030, it is completely unclear to me that there are Republicans that are willing to compromise on this,” Steyer said.